do you lay together beats with fl studio?

I have the software. I want to use it but I feel like an amateur. I used to use it for s&g but never seriously. Now Im serious. I suppose it comes down to inspiration experience and originality. If you use it or something similar how do you get past those three stumbling blocks?

I don't know what S&G is but listen to the music you like and try to break it down, first vertically by listening for individual instrumets, then horizontally to see what each part of the song does, what instruments come in and go out, etc.

Be prepared for your stuff to sound like crap for a long time. We listen to a lot of professionally produced music created by many people who are great at their trade. It is unrealistic to expect that you will be able to make something like that in a few months.

Don't use the default drums. FLStudios is a very popular program and there's no better way to identify a noob than to see who uses the default drums. Add sounds and effects to it to vary it up. Distort them, filter them, compress the, whatever to make them slightly different.

Now Im serious. I suppose it comes down to inspiration experience and originality.

Assuming you're totally new to music, I would strongly recommend getting started with some music theory. Fiddling around in a DAW with no idea how music works is going to be frustrating at best.

I can't emphasize this one enough. If you can't immediately recognize what key and what time signature a given piece is in (at the very least) you should probably keep studying. It's often a huge realization for people that there is a massive amount of structure in the music we listen to and it was generally not written a particular way just because it sounded cool.

I have a bit of music experience. I played the flute and violin in school for 5 years and was a disc jockey for some clubs and private parties in the 90'sso I have some confidence in my talent.

That will help, but it's still not music theory. You are welcome to dick around with composition all you want, but without an understanding of theory, you will be severely limiting yourself.

My suggestion would be to keep doing what you're doing while learning theory as you go. Pick up a 4-octave keyboard too. It will help with composition, learning theory, and makes playing with the synths much easier.

What I meant to say is that it will be difficult to incorporate a controller that requires you to turn away from the rest of your workstation. It's like having to turn your chair 90 degrees every time you want to type an email.

What I meant to say is that it will be difficult to incorporate a controller that requires you to turn away from the rest of your workstation. It's like having to turn your chair 90 degrees every time you want to type an email.

My suggestion would be to keep doing what you're doing while learning theory as you go. Pick up a 4-octave keyboard too. It will help with composition, learning theory, and makes playing with the synths much easier.

While keyboards are nice (and much cheaper than when I first started.. you can get decent ones for around $100) I would first go through the process of making a few practice songs first. The keyboard really isn't strictly necessary, and certainly the full 88 keys isn't needed unless you're learning how to play piano. If you find out later that you want one (especially good for live playing)... then you can buy one, easier than buying one and then letting it sit and collect dust.

FLStudio has one of the most usable mouse-enabled sequencer interfaces in the industry so take advantage of that.

There's no denying that gear is cool, and that software synths are cool, but it's easy to fall into a trap where you think that spending more money gives you better songs, when nothing is farther from the truth! No, you don't NEED Native Instruments's Battery to lay phat beats, you don't NEED Rob Papen's Predator to crank out hot dance synths, and you don't NEED izoTope Ozone to push those levels to the max and get that lush sizzle (but man life would be so fun if I had them!)

I've recently fallen (okay jumped into the deep end because I'm crazy) with this sampling / groove producing shenanigans.

I've had a M-Audio Keystation 49e forever that i used to use with Reason 3.5 on Windows. Then I got a Mac in '09 and just fiddled with Garageband when the 30-60 minute bug hit me every few months.

Then recently a coworker started describing his setup and stuff and I addicted again.

I now have the original M-Audio keyboard ($100?) connected via USB. Controlled by Apple's Logo Pro 9 ($200) and reFX's Nexus 2 ($400) and Vanguard ($80) for great synth goodness, a few expansions ($60 for the pair I chose) and I'm off to the races.

But I wanted DRUMS AND MAD BEATS (lulz). I'm a drummer primarily, have been for 15 years. But alas I live in an apartment and will for the next 3-4 years while putting the lady through school.

So I bought a Native Instruments Maschine Mk2 ($700) and a few expansions for it (~$150 for the three I bought).

Add in my Line6 POD HD 400 ($400 ish) and Ibanez RGD320z ($500) and I can add guitar samples in via USB to Logic and futz with them as patches on the Maschine.

I'm just starting out but I have such a big pile of toys to play with I'm having a blast recording what are most likely very simple things

EDIT: With taxes and stuff (13%) that's probably about $2600-2700 in the past 7 months.

This is all hooked up to a gaming PC I built, but it's probably getting swapped over to a Mac Mini later this month.

Now you're probably thinking "Man that's a lot of stuff". The thing is, I already had a decent home recording setup already. I play several instruments--I play bass in live bands, and I can play guitar, piano, and drums (and sing halfway decently when I try), so I've always had kind of a 1-man studio setup with quite a few basses, an acoustic/electric guitar (I want to add an electric), a Yamaha KX-8 88-key weighted hammer-action midi controller, and a pieced-together electronic drum kit. Oh and a mixer, several different mics, and an Apogee Duet.

The stuff I bought was to get into EDM production, which is a blast so far. Yeah it's a little overboard with the money spent, but half a bonus check came in, and the other half hits next week.

From a controller standpoint, the APC40, MPD18, and Launchpad may seem like overkill since they have overlapping features, but they each do a different job for me.

The APC40 is my main DAW controller. It gives you hardware control over all the unique stuff that Ableton Live is good at. You get buttons for launching all your clips, hardware knobs for tweaking stuff, and faders for easy mixing, plus your normal DAW control stuff.

The MPD18 is strictly for beats. I wanted a 16-pad controller with velocity and aftertouch and it was the cheapest good one. You also get nifty features like it actually covers 48 MIDI notes, it can do note repeat with swing for precision triggering, and you can toggle between velocity sensitivity and forced to full velocity. For drumming with your fingers, it rocks.

The Launchpad I bought for one specific purpose. It's designed to be a cheap all-in-one controller for Live, but I only use it in User mode, where it acts like a constant-velocity MIDI keyboard. It has 72 buttons that act like keys in that mode. The main grid of 64 buttons is split in half left and right, with the lowest note being the bottom-left corner, then moving in half-steps as you go right and up. When you get to the top of the left half of the controller, you start over at the bottom of the right half to keep going up the keyboard, then finally you go down the far right arrow buttons. It sounds weird because it is, but it's possible to play the controller kind of like a keyboard once you figure it out. Why do I use it? Two reasons:

1. Playing becomes pattern-based. You can transpose by a major third easily, you just play the same pattern up or down a row on the controller. This is easier than using a piano keyboard where transposing means playing a different pattern with your fingers.

2. You can make inhuman jumps around the keyboard. Since the controller is relatively small and it's split down the middle, you can play patterns that leap up and down several octaves without having to move your hands much. This is handy in EDM where you might want to play an arpeggio over a range of several octaves. That's extremely difficult to do with any accuracy on a full keyboard but trivial on the Launchpad.

The Launchpad is also handy since I installed Ableton and Komplete on my laptop as well--it's a portable controller that easily fits in a backpack for goofing off with beats away from home.

Oh and to the OP, don't worry too much about feeling like an amateur. This stuff is freakin' complicated.

When The Prodigy was big, I remember reading a quote where the main guy that did the programming was answering criticisms that he wasn't a "real" musician since he wasn't playing anything like a traditional instrument. His answer--he uses a rack full of gear, each piece of which comes with a manual the size of a phone book. While he's not playing a guitar, it's not like it takes zero skill to use. Even though we do most of that in software now, the issue is still the same.

As for learning modern tools, if you look around online there are a lot of kids in their bedrooms trying to figure out how to be the next Skrillex. The answer from guys who know what they're doing is basically "spend a few months learning your tools". I'm pretty sure from getting into this that they mean a few months of full-time work, not a few months of an hour here and there. Treat learning your DAW and your software instruments the same as learning to play guitar or piano--they are your instrument of choice for making electronic music. You won't be cranking out anything that sounds good until you've learned to work those tools quickly without thinking about them.

Good EDM has a LOT going on. If you listen closely, there are a ton of changes in every 16 bars, and no 16 bars exactly matches any others. Coming up with the basics of a song is pretty easy--you just write your "verse" and "chorus" parts around some kind of a hook. Going from that zygote of a song to the full thing is where you actually do most of the work. You have to get the sound you want in your head, then program the whole thing out in your DAW. You might have started with a handful of tracks when you were composing, but your final version may have dozens of tracks, some of them with just a few little slices and snips of sounds. The whole modern trend toward glitch sort of demands that.

I've recently fallen (okay jumped into the deep end because I'm crazy) with this sampling / groove producing shenanigans.

Right there with you.

I've ill-spent money on many things that I no longer use now. I have a copy of Reason 3.0 that I don't use anymore. I bought Logic Pro 7 for a lot of money (academic version) and I don't use that anymore; I bought 9 instead. I bought a 61-key MIDI controller and now it sits at the side of my office. I own an Alesis Micron that I rarely use either and instead use DSi Evolver. I also have a 8-channel mixer that's currently not plugged into anything. That's about $1500 of equipment and software that I am no longer using.

And despite telling myself this I go out and buy a $200 effects proccessor here, a $120 guitar library there...

That's why I tell the OP to not simply go out and buy stuff. A keyboard *might* be useful because it makes note entry and brainstorming faster, but that's the only purchase I'd seriously consider, and even then I'd recommend buying a cheap one because you won't know the difference unless you're an experienced piano/keyboard player. You obviously own FLStudio (or are using its demo) as well. Spend no more money until you've written a few songs

Man I havent used FL since 2000. Ableton is probably the most popular and for good reason. It has a lot of features besides just the sequencing. I still use Protools for working in audio files themselves after Im done with the tracking and sequencing. But thats not to suggest ableton isnt a capable audio manip program. Its just that PT has traditionally been the goto for tracking/mixing and editing, and its the 1000lbs Gorilla in the industry. One way or another you'll have to learn PT if you wanna go any further than just being a bedroom producer. For sequencing hardware synths Cubase has usually been the fav, then Logic but again its all dependent on preferences I suppose. Theres also a new program to rival Ableton called BitWig which was written by some former Ableton engineers. It looks pretty neat and wonder if it'll compel me to switch over. Its in close beta now though.

Then there is Reason. I've been using Reason since its inception, and before that I was a huge fan of Rebirth. I still use Reason occasionally because I've got 50+gb of Reason refills that are too good to pass up. I just hate the interface. Definitely a case of form over function. Reason looked fine when everyone was using 15" monitors at 1024x768 or 1280x768 at most. But at 1080p and higher? I sit 3 inches away from the monitor trying to see wtf is going on. Take plotting notes on the Matrix step sequencer. Its stupidly difficult on hires because its arbitrarily small because hey its stylish. Theres no reason they couldnt remake the interface to support higher resolutions because its literally been unchanged since 1.0 I think.

Either way stick with one program for now and learn the shit out of it. Then you can start jumping around in other apps. These things are complex enough by themselves. Dicking around with another complicated software when you barely know the previous one will waste a lot of time and just frustrate you.

Hardware wise, a good interface with as low latency as possible is a must. Nowadays even cheapo interfaces in the sub $100 range can make do, though I'd start with the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 at $150. Its the best interface at its price range. I use it for my portable setup for my laptop and its been flawless. It can do everything from FL to Protools so its a good one to start off with.

Keyboard, and you'll want a keyboard trust me. Well if price is an issue, the Akai MPK Mini for $99 is the one to get. There are other similar small form factor ones, like Korg Nanokeys, but the MPK Mini is probly the best of em all. 8 pads for beat making, 8 knobs, built in arpeggiator etc. 88 Key keyboards are a bit much for a novice unless you can play piano already. At most I'd go with a 49key to start just for the real estate alone. Arturia makes some good ones. Seems to be a hit or miss with MIDI keyboards these days. Why cant we get a modern take of the Roland Axx keyboards, those were the friggin benchmark.

I strongly disagree with using a mouse instead of a keyboard. It wont be much fun plotting single notes in a piano roll one at a time. Even if you cant play Piano its a lot easier to figure out chords and series of notes on a keyboard over a mouse. Trust me, thats how I started with FL. Couldnt afford a MIDI keyboard so I built songs with a mouse and it quickly killed my buzz. One of the fun things about making music is trying to make music on an intrument you're not familiar with. Keyboard is one of if not the easiest. Kinda hard to mess up as its very binary, unlike a guitar or horn instrument etc.

Like Jehos Id suggest getting something like the MDP16 or Korg PadKontrol for laying down beats. You can use a keyboard (music one, not computer) if you want, but hitting on pads usually works better. Like I said the MPK Mini has pads but they are stiff unless you wanna mod them which is what a lot of ppl do.

I cant play Piano for shit. If I was that chick in The Goonies and I had to play that fucked up bone Organ thing we'd all be dead and impaled on sticks or whatever. But as a guitar player I could figure out what notes had to go where, even without actually knowing what was going on. Now I can play some blazing leads (not Jorden Rudess style of course, then again I try to not to sound boring and just masturbate as many notes as possible. Seriously and this is just me, but keyboard solos always bored me to tears, you got that Rick Wakeman!!!!)

Anyway try to have fun. Try to be serious and invest some serious time and energy not only learning the program, but most importantly learning music. Learn as much about music and music theory if you can as it can only help not hurt. Then start delving in deeper into your chosen program. Be more concerned with coming up with riffs and stringing them together instead of programming some virtual synth before you know how to play a few chords. I wasted a lot of time learning to program my sounds before knowing what to do with em. Pick and choose the sounds closest to whats in your head, make your song, THEN start fiddling with samples and sounds. As you gain more knowledge of how your preferred software works then you can spend more time designing sounds.

LISTEN to as much music as you can and dont limit yourself to just your favorite genre. I cant stand most EDM, I prefer the likes of Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly as I'd rather stick a razor blade up my dick hole than listen to Skillrex or anything Dubstep. But I listen to classical, fusion/acid jazz, any thing with a tasty groove really. I LOVE 80's synth music, especially stuff like Microchip League, Art of Noise, Yello etc. Different forms of music will give you different ideas. I'll come up with some melodic arpeggio, a spacey pad chord sequence and some jazzy bassline and start groovin. I love mixing different styles of music together. Come up with some fucked up industrial death metal beat with a Konghou sample on top. And dont stop. If you come up with a neat beat, stick with it and try to build on top of it. Make a complete song. When I started I had like 40 different projects with riffs here and there and only 3 or 4 complete songs read to go. Dont be discouraged if something sucks because we all suck when we start learning, its just a part of the process.

So just as an aside, FM synthesizers are fun. I spent a couple hours dicking around with FM8 last night. I haven't *quite* gotten the hang of it, but I'm getting there. It's stupid simple to work with once you learn a couple tricks, now I'm just in the process of mapping the settings to sounds in my head. Downside is, the Launchpad doesn't work as a keyboard unless you've fired up Ableton.

Mindphaser wrote:

LISTEN to as much music as you can and dont limit yourself to just your favorite genre. I cant stand most EDM, I prefer the likes of Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly as I'd rather stick a razor blade up my dick hole than listen to Skillrex or anything Dubstep. But I listen to classical, fusion/acid jazz, any thing with a tasty groove really.

This is really good advice. I've started listening to the classical radio station again for ideas. If you pay attention, you'll find a bunch of cool chord progressions and arpeggios in classical.

So just as an aside, FM synthesizers are fun. I spent a couple hours dicking around with FM8 last night.

FM8 is an extremely powerful synthesizer and one of my favorites. There's hardly anything it can't do.

Reaktor has been my favorite for many years now, often to the detriment of my music-writing. If you like playing with synths, sit down for a couple of hours with a video tutorial and learn to make your own synths Reaktor.

So just as an aside, FM synthesizers are fun. I spent a couple hours dicking around with FM8 last night.

FM8 is an extremely powerful synthesizer and one of my favorites. There's hardly anything it can't do.

Reaktor has been my favorite for many years now, often to the detriment of my music-writing. If you like playing with synths, sit down for a couple of hours with a video tutorial and learn to make your own synths Reaktor.

Yeah, I'm still just having fun with the Reaktor player.

Razor in particular is a fun little synth. Something about the easily-modulated gritty sounds just does it for me.

I'm still wrapping my head around what all came with Komplete 8 Ultimate. Upside is, I can have fun for days just browsing patches and goofing off. Then other days I sit down with the instruments and learn a thing or two.

What I'm still getting my head around right now is what's the best-in-class way to do things. For example FM8 has some cool synthesis features, but its effects are kind of "meh". Better I think to drop back to your DAW and use a different effects plug-in. It's super interesting to me right now trying to figure out how to get a sound in my head out through the tools.

Like last night I played with FM8, then this morning I was listening to some Feed Me while getting ready for work and breaking down how you probably do one of the sounds on one of the songs. It heavily used a filter sweep, but I don't think it was side-chained, I think he actually twiddled a knob or fader to get exactly the right sound. That got me thinking about how the synth sound needed to be harsher with more high-end than the final product so you can cut it out with a sweeping high-pass filter, which got me thinking about what sort of MIDI input I'd want to use to make the musical expression easier, then I realized I'd better hurry up so I wasn't late for work.

Man I havent used FL since 2000. Ableton is probably the most popular and for good reason. It has a lot of features besides just the sequencing. I still use Protools for working in audio files themselves after Im done with the tracking and sequencing. But thats not to suggest ableton isnt a capable audio manip program. Its just that PT has traditionally been the goto for tracking/mixing and editing, and its the 1000lbs Gorilla in the industry. One way or another you'll have to learn PT if you wanna go any further than just being a bedroom producer. For sequencing hardware synths Cubase has usually been the fav, then Logic but again its all dependent on preferences I suppose. Theres also a new program to rival Ableton called BitWig which was written by some former Ableton engineers. It looks pretty neat and wonder if it'll compel me to switch over. Its in close beta now though.

Most of the Ableton users actually use something else for their tracking and sequencing, they use Ableton for LIVE performances. FL has come a LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG way since 2000, hell ProTools has come a long way since 2000 as well.

At the moment with the appropriate effects and instruments, you can pretty much use anything from ProTools to Ableton to FL Studio to Reaper and pretty much do it all the same way at that. It's mostly an issue of the individual workflow differences and how fast you are in each program. FL Studio has a vastly different one as does Live (Ableton) - I am unfortunately fairly old school, so I still use ProTools since I'm like 10 times faster in it than FL Studio or Live. I use Live in those rare situations that I DJ though.

Razor in particular is a fun little synth. Something about the easily-modulated gritty sounds just does it for me.

I'm still wrapping my head around what all came with Komplete 8 Ultimate. Upside is, I can have fun for days just browsing patches and goofing off. Then other days I sit down with the instruments and learn a thing or two.

What I'm still getting my head around right now is what's the best-in-class way to do things. For example FM8 has some cool synthesis features, but its effects are kind of "meh". Better I think to drop back to your DAW and use a different effects plug-in. It's super interesting to me right now trying to figure out how to get a sound in my head out through the tools.

I use Reaktor for almost all of my effects.

Another great option is Guitar Rig. It's not only good for guitars, fantastic amp simulation and distortion effects. It even has a reamping feature!

Most of the Ableton users actually use something else for their tracking and sequencing, they use Ableton for LIVE performances. FL has come a LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG way since 2000, hell ProTools has come a long way since 2000 as well.

At the moment with the appropriate effects and instruments, you can pretty much use anything from ProTools to Ableton to FL Studio to Reaper and pretty much do it all the same way at that. It's mostly an issue of the individual workflow differences and how fast you are in each program. FL Studio has a vastly different one as does Live (Ableton) - I am unfortunately fairly old school, so I still use ProTools since I'm like 10 times faster in it than FL Studio or Live. I use Live in those rare situations that I DJ though.

Abelton's session view is really good for brainstorming though.

I've been using Cakewalk/Sonar since version 3 in Windows 3.1, recently converted to Reaper and haven't looked back. Out of all the other DAWs I tried, it was the best at getting out of my way and letting me make music.

Agreed, that's why I did the trial and ultimately bought it. Playing around with some of the demo songs in session view really sold me. For me it seemed like it really helps your songwriting--you lay down a 1, 2, 4, 8, or 16 bar part, then record some variations on it. Triggering those variations from session view lets you put together the whole song and Ableton does all the hard work for you, like when you push the button it actually finishes out the measure before starting the new clip.

Another aside, this has been one of my "we're living in the future" moments. I was in high school when Nine Inch Nails hit the scene and digital recording started to take off. First there were ADAT machines, then computer-based recording started to take off. I remember reading about Trent Reznor recording The Downward Spiral on a beefed-up PowerMac G3. Computers then wouldn't handle tons of instruments, they just did the tracking for you. You'd still have to hook up a bunch of outboard synths to generate sounds to go to tape.

Now, at my desk right here I have a 15" laptop with Ableton and Komplete installed. It's basically a complete software studio I can throw in my backpack, with room left over for an audio interface, some MIDI controllers, and a couple mics. We're living in an age where guys like Sonny Moore can actually launch a music career with nothing but their own talent and well under $3k in hardware and software, and their whole "studio" can be carried around in a satchel.

Another aside, this has been one of my "we're living in the future" moments. I was in high school when Nine Inch Nails hit the scene and digital recording started to take off. First there were ADAT machines, then computer-based recording started to take off. I remember reading about Trent Reznor recording The Downward Spiral on a beefed-up PowerMac G3. Computers then wouldn't handle tons of instruments, they just did the tracking for you. You'd still have to hook up a bunch of outboard synths to generate sounds to go to tape.

I hated electronic music until Pretty Hate Machine was released. Then I saw the light.

Jehos wrote:

Now, at my desk right here I have a 15" laptop with Ableton and Komplete installed. It's basically a complete software studio I can throw in my backpack, with room left over for an audio interface, some MIDI controllers, and a couple mics. We're living in an age where guys like Sonny Moore can actually launch a music career with nothing but their own talent and well under $3k in hardware and software, and their whole "studio" can be carried around in a satchel.

I started composing with CakeWalk 3 and the FM synth on a Sound Blaster and moved up from there. I still have my Roland JV-1080 and Kurzweil K2000.

The difference in cost these days is amazing. Nowadays, any one of my works easily uses the equivalent of $50,0000 in hardware synths and effects.

Another thing I love about using VSTs is the practically unlimited number of voices. I'm not going to go into detail, but trying to get big sound out of a few 32-voice synths is HARD.

so here is a software questionIf I am using soundforge to edit and fl studio producer edition to put things together then what could I pick up to help me have fun and learn?

Depends, what do you consider fun and what do you want to learn?

There's a lot to learn just digging into your software. SynthMaker looks like fun.

If you're just looking for more stuff to make sounds, I suggest grabbing a physical copy of Computer Music magazine. It includes a DVD with a bunch of synths on it that should work as plug-ins to FL Studio. In fact if you're just into playing with new toys for shits and giggles, a CM subscription isn't the worst thing in the world. You get bite-sized lessons and free software every issue.

If you want just sounds visit freesounds.org and grab some samples from there. Also visit KVR and grab software synths that you think are interesting or neat. FLStudio though has a lot of decent "default" sounding things.

Things that my mostly-amateur friends use and play with include:

Magical 8-bit, to crank out those authentic NES tunesDelay Llama to bring that Tibetan "awe" into your songPaul Stretch to make even 30 seconds Justin Bieber sound amazing when stretched over five minutesdBlue Glitch to make those glitch effects effortlessSynth1 for a vanilla subtractive synth

There are also a lot of video tutorials for FL Studio. I can't tell you which ones are good but you might want to do a bit of browsing.

I started composing with CakeWalk 3 and the FM synth on a Sound Blaster and moved up from there. I still have my Roland JV-1080 and Kurzweil K2000.

Jesus Christ, you must be exactly my age or something. I'm a lifelong classical pianist, so I've got a musical theory background as long as I have an English background. I started sequencing digital music with the CW3 demo on our 486DX with SB-Pro and Yamaha YPP-35 (which I'm still using, the top keyboard in that photo up-thread, damn that thing is still running????) on Windows 3.1, and when my dad saw that I was using the shit out of it and hating that I couldn't save anything, he bought CW Home Studio 7. After he saw just how powerful that software was combined with my skill and creativity, he bought me a Roland JV-1010 (a baby version of your -1080) and FUCK ME it opened up my world. Alas, it died years ago, but I've since converted to soft synths via the unofficial try-before-you-buy method through your friendly, neighborhood pirate bay.

I've never been a make-your-own-sounds guy. Just give me banks and banks and banks of presets with the ability to tweak them all to hell and back. Probably habit from having started on that 1010.

I'm having a blast just playing with the built in stuff, tweaking it, laying down patterns, etc.

Like Jehos I too play a handful of instruments. I've been a drummer for about 15 years, 6 years of trumpet, a year of piano (so rusty), and about 4-5 months of guitar this year.

I think being musically inclined already (especially rhythmically) has helped me a lot with the electronic stuff especially. I can take a synth even in Nexus 2 w/ Logic and "drum" all over the m-audio keyboard to create cool melodies and such.

I'm definitely not aiming for live stuff, heck I'd be happy to make something I thought was good enough to put on youtube.

Jesus Christ, you must be exactly my age or something. I'm a lifelong classical pianist, so I've got a musical theory background as long as I have an English background.

I'm 38. I was a middle/high school band nerd and majored in music composition in college for a while. After meeting graduates in this field, it didn't take me long to realize I would always be poor if I pursued composition, so I switch to CompSci.

rafadavidc wrote:

Alas, it died years ago, but I've since converted to soft synths via the unofficial try-before-you-buy method through your friendly, neighborhood pirate bay.

That's how I started with Native Instruments. I "borrowed" a copy of Reaktor a few years ago, realized how incredibly powerful it was, then promptly bought Komplete (not ultimate though).

I'm on Komplete 6 now. I want to upgrade to either 8 or 8 Ultimate, but I have seen a lot of rumors about 9 coming out for the past year.

rafadavidc wrote:

I've never been a make-your-own-sounds guy. Just give me banks and banks and banks of presets with the ability to tweak them all to hell and back. Probably habit from having started on that 1010.

I always felt like I was cheating when I used stock sounds... like I was claiming somebody else's work as my own.

I'm on Komplete 6 now. I want to upgrade to either 8 or 8 Ultimate, but I have seen a lot of rumors about 9 coming out for the past year.

There will always be a new version.

I have to give it to Ableton, they kick ass with solving that problem. The Live 8 license I just bought comes with a free upgrade to 9, that's why I bought now instead of later. As soon as they announced 9, all new 8 licenses come with a free upgrade.

Also after playing with the MIDI controllers I've got, I'm seriously eyeing the Push. It's like the APC40 and Launchpad had a baby. Since the Launchpad has become my go-to instrument of choice 70% of the time and my main gripe is it lacks knobs, I think the Push might be just the thing for me.